I somehow survived 8 races last year without injury. Granted, I suffered through most of the 5Ks because I couldn’t breathe for most of them (nose was clogged, had a bad cough, etc), but I never had a running-related injury.

And then I blew it.

My run in Wyoming 2 weeks before the Nike Women’s Half was my last real run before the race. I ran a respectable 8.5 miles, but I did no weekday runs the weeks before or after. The weekend before the race, I set out to get in 10 miles in a last ditch effort to get myself mentally ready for the 13.1 since I obviously was not physically prepared. Know what happened?

I limped home after 7.5 miles because I almost fell flat on my face from the sudden rush of intense pain in my right knee. It came fast and hard, and I had no idea what happened. I was mostly thankful that I chose to run the last portion of my run near home so that I wasn’t miles and miles away. I even had to take breaks from walking because that just hurt too much.

Having never been injured, I just didn’t even know what to do. I decided to take the entire week off (not that I had been doing any differently in the weeks beforehand) and save the running mojo for race weekend in San Francisco. Having walked about 10 miles around the streets of SF before the race, up and down massive hills, my legs were further shot and achy before the big day on Sunday. Needless to say, it was a crappy race for me, and I added more than 30 minutes to my slowest half marathon time. Oh, and I also ugly-cried about 5 times. Sooooo attractive. I’ll write up a recap at some point, but I’m still somewhat bitter and annoyed with myself because of it.

I believe I trained a total of 100 miles over the 3 months I “prepared” for that race when I was running about 30 miles a week for my first two. Not smart, and I will NEVER do it again. Since the race in October, I’ve pretty much been sidelined from running. I tried my first spin class during this time and loved it, but it doesn’t fit into my current school schedule. My current schedule is work M-F from 7a-4p and school M-Th from 6p-9p. Then I spend most of my late evenings and weekend reading, doing homework, and studying. I think you get the point, but I have to spend a lot of time on my derriere. I haven’t gotten into enough of a routine to try to fit in a full workout, so I’ve been going with the next best thing:

Brisk walks during lunch! I’ve been averaging about 3 miles per day during lunch to just wake myself up and get re-focused for the day. Since I work downtown, I’ve been taking a new route through various parts of downtown each day. It’s not much, but it’s the most I can do for now.

(instagram: fitontherocks)

And for the future: follow a training plan and stick to it! It’s not worth injuring yourself in the long run.

Question of the Day: Have you ever suffered a workout injury? What did you do during your recovery?